Small Wind - Planning & Building Successful Installations, with Case Studies from the Field

Small wind turbines provide an increasingly popular way for individual businesses, farms, and homes to generate their own electricity, potentially cutting their energy bills drastically, while generating power in an environmentally sound manner.

The challenges facing the engineers who are tasked with planning and developing these small wind systems are multifaceted, from choosing the best site and accurately estimating likely power output, to obtaining proper permitting and troubleshooting operational inefficiencies. Simply utilizing the processes followed in the creation of large-scale wind farms will lead to certain failure; optimization of project development for small wind applications is a necessity. In all phases of the process, there are key concerns to undertake and guidelines to follow, that if properly taken into account, can literally save project planners and managers tens of thousands of dollars and untold months of potential development delays.

This book provides a cohesive guide to achieving sucessful small wind installations. It is a comprehensive information resource from one of the world’s most experienced small wind professionals, covering all the key issues for small wind system development, from site and machine selection to international standards compliance.

Key Features

• Establishes technical guidelines for the growing number of engineers called upon to plan small wind projects who do not yet have great amounts of real-world experience, giving them an invaluable head-start.
• Identifies and explains the critical issues for small wind installations- including siting, turbine choice, applications & permitting, economics, load management, and grid integration, supporting informed decision making throughout the process.
• Case studies from real projects demonstrate key considerations for success, complete with template spreadsheets and measurements needed to support project planning efforts
• Includes reports on the most commonly used turbines and designs, synthesizes and clarifies relevant DOE documentation, saving readers endless hours of research